“Brooklyn,” her name wheezed from my chest, my fingers twitching in hunt of a weapon, or better yet, in hunt of her.
There was a pounding taking place in the back of my skull, pain slowly blossoming across my body as whatever I’d been shot with slowly began to wear off. I was a big lad, bigger than pretty much every fucker I’d ever met aside from that giant Brooklyn had brought home from Eden Heights, and I needed higher doses of drugs for them to affect me in the desired way. I was guessing I wasn’t even supposed to be conscious right now. Though I couldn’t say I’d figured out if that was because someone was hoping to make my end a slow one or if there was something else taking place in this moment.
I had no space for those thoughts in my skull. Only her. Only my memories of the last time I’d failed to protect the woman I was married to and what my failure had cost her.
If I was reliving that worst sin of mine now, then I knew I wouldn’t survive it. Not in any way, shape, or form. I’d escape this world in a reign of violence which drenched me in blood and saw me well and truly destroyed by its end. There would be no continuing on for me without her.
The pounding grew louder, solidifying into something so much more real and I realised it was the sound of approaching footsteps, not some echo of pain locked solely within my own mind.
“Hellfire!” Brooklyn’s voice sent shock and light blazing through me, this eternal kind of relief surging up to consume me as I tried to call out to her in reply.
My eyes fell closed, removing my view of the sky as I listened to the sound of her approaching, unsure if it was real or just a whisper reaching me from beyond the realms of death, come to call me to it. Either way, my answer was yes. I’d follow her wherever she went and beyond.
A wail of pain filled the air as she reached me, her hand locking with mine and a cry of horror sounding as she pressed her mouth to my flesh, the feeling somehow so intense despite my inability to move my limbs that it roused the fire in me and stoked it until it was blazing once more.
“I told you, he’s dead!” Brooklyn cried, true grief echoing through her voice. “It’s the end, for him, for me, for all of us. How should we do it? Just slit our throats or pull the pin on a grenade and hug it between us so that our insides can get all mixed up as a final show of our love?”
I tried to speak, tried to open my eyes, but my body was finally giving into the pull of the drugs now that she was here, now that I knew she was safe and the mixture of the relief I felt and the pain pressing into my body from the injuries I’d gained in my fall were enough to force me into sleep.
A hand slapped my cheek as Brooklyn cried out even louder than before, a sob tearing from her throat which carved into me and filled me with the need to show her that I was still here for her.
I felt her moving closer to me, fingers pushing against my pulse point in hunt for a sign of life and I focused all of my energy on the feeling of her so close to me, knowing her lips were only a breath away from mine and needing to show her that I was still here.
With a growl of effort, I managed to lurch forward just enough to close the distance between us, my mouth finding hers and kissing her hard, my tongue pushing between her lips just as I felt the rough bite of stubble grazing against my chin.
My eyes flew open and met a set of startled brown ones half a beat before Mateo reared back and punched me.
The blow sent my head crashing back down against the roof of the car as he started cursing in his fancy language and a manic laugh fell from my lungs as I realised my mistake.
A wild shriek filled the air and I twisted my head towards it, spotting Jack there where I’d expected to find Brooklyn, a pitiful looking Brutus slung over his shoulders, an eyebrow arched at me which I interpreted as utter relief and joy over my continued survival in this world. But before I could get too lost in his grey stare and the tears which would no doubt be welling at any moment, a pocket-sized psycho leapt on top of me and knocked the air clean outa my lungs.
She pressed something cold and hard into my side and Mateo gasped, lunging for it. His hand closed on a grenade in her grip and he hurriedly plucked a pin from between her teeth, smoothly sliding it back into place within the grenade before the thing could blow us to kingdom come.
“Holy fuck, love,” I cursed, my heart hammering. That thing could only have had a fraction of a millisecond left on it before it went boom.
“Oopsie,” she breathed, blushing cutely. “I almost made us go bang. But now I don’t have to! Because you’re alive. We’re all together. And I killed her, Hellfire,” she gasped. “Stabbed her in her tits until they went pop and ended her for hurting you. It’s all over now.”
She was bloodstained and windswept, her dark hair a mess, falling out of its little buns and brilliant blue eyes wild in the most electric way. She was looking down at me like she was some mythical mermaid and I was a shipwrecked soul she’d found lying on her beach, his heart hers for the taking and his soul endlessly lost in the ocean of her.
I smiled as I observed her in all her bloody glory, not really caring who it was she’d killed or what it had taken to put us here, because the point was that here she was. With me. And there was nothing in this world or any other that could tear us apart now.
“Come claim my soul, little psycho,” I urged, managing to move my hands so that they curled around her waist where she straddled me and there could be no doubting how real she was. “It’s all yours anyway.”
Brooklyn gave me a blinding smile before leaning down and offering the kiss I’d been needing. All the love and devotion a rotten soul like mine never should have been worthy of filled me up, surrounding me entirely as she kissed me like I was her world just as she was mine.
Bloodshed, carnage, mayhem and us. That was all I never knew I needed, and all I’d ever want now. Just me, her, a feral dog and two bloodthirsty arseholes who loved her beyond the point of sanity too. And that was all I desired in this world of chaos, our own little home in the storm.
TWO WEEKS LATER
P atricide.
Such a pretty word for such an unwholesome task. Though I had to say, in this instance, killing my father was no loss to the world. Liam O'Brien was a mean bastard who'd long since earned his ticket to hell. I probably should have sent him there myself a long time ago, but better the devil you know I supposed.
Now though, my dear old pa had outstayed his welcome on this planet. He'd had a good run. Eighty-two was decent innings for someone as atrocious as him. Or was it eighty-five? Hmm, eighty-something, for sure. Anyway, the arsehole had had more than his fair share of time ruining lives and wreaking carnage on this earthly plain, and he'd finally pushed me into action.
To be fair to him, I'd stood by while he'd committed countless horrendous acts, even taken part in more of them than I could count, but I had a hard line and he knew it. Ever since Ava had been taken from me. Taken. Beaten. Raped countless times by countless men. Killed minutes before I could get to her. My sweet Ava who had been too fucking good for this world. Too fucking good for a heathen like me. Anyway, point was, my pa knew my limits, and he'd overstepped. I half imagined he was expecting me. Though on second thought, he likely believed he was far too clever for that.
Had he truly believed I wouldn’t figure this out though? That I wouldn’t put two and two together and make myself an omelette of the poisonous variety?
I was a hard man, a cruel one, evil some might say, but I had limits. They may have been few and far between, but it was so. I also had a code. A single honourable thing which had been drummed into me and every member of my rotten family since the day of my birth.